Bernard Meninsky (25 July 1891 – 12 February 1950) was a British painter of figures and landscapes in oils, watercolour and gouache, a draughtsman and a teacher.

[2][3] Although Meninsky left school at the age of eleven, his talent for art was demonstrated by the sale of a drawing to a local comic postcard business.

Another important contact Meninsky made at this time was Walter Sickert, who hosted 'at homes' for Slade and ex-Slade students in his Fitzroy Street studio.

[8] While Bomberg and Roberts would go on to explore their own brand of 'English Cubism' in their immediate post-Slade years, Meninsky's work was less radical – though he had nevertheless 'been bowled over most completely by the greatness of Cézanne'.

[21] Meninsky completed The Arrival of a Leave Train, Victoria Station, 1918 and at least five other related works before the end of 1918, all of which are now in the Imperial War Museum collection.

The Arrival of a Leave Train, Victoria Station, 1918 wes included in the major exhibition of war art held at the National Gallery, London, in late 1919 and early 1920.

[29] In the winter of 1922 Meninsky tried to put his personal troubles behind him by means of an extended caravan trip to the south of France with a friend, Stuart Edmonds.

[31] The 'Bloomsbury artists' Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Fry dominated the London Group shows of the 1920s, and to some extent Meninsky's work shares their 'English Post-Impressionist' aesthetic.

[36] In the mid-1920s Meninsky arranged for his friend William Roberts to share his life class duties at the Central School, and in this capacity they worked together for the next 25 years.

[48] Meninsky explained that 'the work of Picasso, Derain, and Matisse made me realise the unique opportunities which the theatre can give the painter to express himself on a vast scale in terms of colour or light and shade.

[50] For three of the winter months of 1935/6 Meninsky travelled to Torremolinos and Malaga[51] in Spain, funded by a grant from the Artists' Benevolent Society.

Edward Marsh – for many years Winston Churchill's secretary – bought some Meninsky drawings for himself and also on behalf of his friend Ivor Novello.

[53] With the outbreak of war in September 1939 the London art schools closed and, following stays with Nora's relatives in the winter of 1939/40, the Meninskys moved to Oxford, where they had a small circle of friends including Helen Darbishire, the artist Paul Nash and his wife Margaret, and William and Sarah Roberts, who had decamped to Oxford at the beginning of the war.

In August 1942 Meninsky was approached by the War Artists' Advisory Committee to paint a watercolour connected to home-front activity for a fee of 30 guineas, and he later negotiated a further portrait commission.

His work moved into what can be seen as a final phase that drew upon the visionary dream worlds of William Blake and Samuel Palmer and the pastoral poems of John Milton, whose 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso' Meninsky was commissioned to illustrate by the publisher Alan Wingate.

[55] Taylor summarises the work of this period thus: 'Meninsky's rich-tone landscapes … were peopled with mothers and children, family groups travelling (several canvases … inspired by the New Testament story of the Flight into Egypt), pilgrims with staff in hand, shepherds without flocks and heavy-limbed women resting.

In addition the exhibition 'A Singular Vision: Drawings and Paintings by Bernard Meninsky' toured to Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, London and Kingston upon Thames in 2001.

Nora Meninsky bequeathed her collection of her husband's work to the Contemporary Art Society to distribute to regional galleries in the UK and beyond.

Nora Meninsky bequeathed collections of photographs, letters, documents, sketchbooks, exhibition catalogues and writings to the Tate archive – some of which have been digitised.